Anil Bose – Graphic Designer Spotlight

I am from New Delhi. As a child I studied at a boarding school in a hill station Mussoorie. After my 12th grade I came over to New Delhi for my Graduation and work.

While at school I had mixed set of subjects where I did Biology, Physics, Math, Chemistry, along with Fine art. I did spend quality time in Art and had a great Art and Craft teacher as my mentor. Once I gave my entrance tests for Medical and Engineering I realized I wasn’t truly interested in sciences nor could I score the high 90s to tag on. I took to what I truly liked and got into an Art College thru a tough entry test. I finished BFA in 1987, just during this time Computer Graphics had started and I joined a company which made graphics for top TV producers. So I enjoyed my Art and design work using my science and math’s for animation etc. Looking back I am glad I moved out from pure sciences and moved steadily with TV graphics , CD Rom titles, animation, E-learning design+ Learning games, and Senior Learning Designer.

I do corporate work for my bread and butter and occasionally do freelance work in other areas, like Kids illustrations work, 3D interior design, photography assignments. Yes I love my job as I get ample amount of freedom in creating interactive solutions in a new domain “Buying House”

The process of creative problem solving while making online solutions, gives me a high. I love creating the UI and graphics creation too. Presently I am the only graphics person here so I do all of the design part.

I would love to do an assignment for NatGeo of Animal Planet to create a title sequence. I look forward to this is because the standard of work is already high I would have to create something really cool.

I have been closely involved in the design and Graphics production for learning board game for the COBIT framework while in my earlier company called ITpreneurs. What really interested me was working with top people who were the subject matter experts. For this I traveled to Netherlands and worked the initial part of the design there and then detailed out the work back home this gave a rich experience interacting with different people brainstorming etc. The other works which I remember fondly are 2 short animated films to promote wearing light color clothes while on the road at night and the other on crossing the road both were for kids of 6 to 9yrs. The films had a mix of 2d and live action. They were challenging to make seamlessly.

Frankly speaking I’m not great in the area of providing advice, but what I can say is when you are dealing with a client for the first time and the client catches wind that this is the first assignment and you are willing to do it for less, the outcome will not be as planned. After the assignment the client disappears. What I can say is make clear payment terms where there is an upfront advance 30% followed by payment at different delivery stages.

One person who helped shape my career was Swati who was the designer working for a company famous for quizzes called Synergy. I was working as a digital artist from an art school but as the time went by I felt I was more like an operator as the creative design thinking was already in place before I rendered the whole thing. I’m not saying this is wrong, doing the artwork was fun but I wanted to do creative thinking work on style sheets. Swati was doing all this fantastic stuff she guided me to NID the top design school in India. I was lucky to get admission and built my skills further. This was only the start then there were 2 companies where I practically learned and created design solutions, these being Magic software and ITpreneurs.

I take a good look at the brief and do rapid protos and then give some gestation time. Here I listen to music , see inspiring sites dabble with new ideas. This is not too concentrated, the time gets my creative juices flowing and invariably I come up with creative work. Other times it’s a quick spark that I pick up while hearing and discussing the assignment.

I’m passionate about learning a new musical instrument which I had earlier been postponing its the mouth organ. I’m also happy to see and hear my daughter learning and playing the synth so well. I think really seeing small victories in life as a family and tiding over problems makes life exciting. Also being involved & part of successful families who continue to conquer struggles makes a huge difference to me.

Earlier I was struggling about whether I should move to a manager position like Art Director etc, but as I have moved along in companies I think my strength lays in dabbling with tools doing the design and thinking through. So I see myself using my skills and being flexible for which domain I work in. Being more of a Design Guru then a manager is what I think will be my ultimate accomplishment.